Double Surgeon Knot

[xarax]

   It is not always easy to remember how one should tie these three very similar bends, the Sennit, the Reever, and the Vice Versa.... However, there is another bend that is also similar with those three, yet it is almost impossible for anybody to forget it, or tie it wrongly ! I am speaking about the Double Surgeon knot - a re-tucked form of the well known Surgeon knot. Although it starts from an altogether different loose knot, when it is tightened a little bit, it looks like the other three. ( See the attached pictures ). In its final form, the tails do not remain parallel with the standing ends... but the way they are secured into the knot s nub is not very different - it is not inferior, and it might be even better. So I guess that this bend will be at least as secure and strong as any of the other three - and if that is really the case, why one should try to tie a difficult to remember bend, and not a similar very easy one, with about the same properties ? 

[Sweeney]

Interesting point - even the "ordinary" surgeon's knot (which looks attractive when tightened) is a big improvement for those whose knotting expertise begins with a reef (square) knot and ends with an overhand loop - at least as a bend in such as string or other throwaway material. Does the double surgeon's jam under load?

Barry

[xarax]

Thank you, Sweeney, 
 

Does the double surgeon's jam under load?

  Although I believe that jamming is more a quantity ( yet to be defined in an unambiguous way...)  more, rather than a quality ( i.e., all  knots jam, to a lesser or greater degree - depending upon tension forces and materials... ), I think that this bend "does not jam". On the contrary, it can be untied quite easily, when, after it has been loaded heavily, it is untensioned and straightened  again ( the tails and the end bights are aligned again with the standing ends axis, and the knot s nub is flattened).
   Now, this bend reminds me The Violin (1)( See the attached pictures). Indeed, it can be considered as a more convoluted and easier to remember-how-to-tie version of this most beautiful knot. ( See how The Violin is tied, starting from a certain manipulation of the Grief knot, at pic.#4 ). Of course, it has not The Violin s grace and outmost simplicity, but I think it can be thought as a quite similar knot nevertheless.

1)  http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=2694.msg17155#msg17155
2)  http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=2694.msg17163#msg17163

[Dan_Lehman]

I am speaking about the Double Surgeon knot - a re-tucked form of the well known Surgeon knot.

Then you are misrepresenting this knot,
for the "well known" knot is an extension
of the squaREef knot --not a glorified granny
as is presented above.


 

...  all  knots jam ...

  I disagree : e.g., how does the bellringer's loop jam?!


--dl*
====

[xarax]

a glorified granny... presented above.

  Nice ! "grorified granny knot "  . I do not believe that surgeons actually use the "surgeon s knot", or that any surgeon will ever notice any difference...    However, this "grorified granny" is a very secure, easy to remember / difficult to forget and interesting knot, that might well serve as a old-forgetting-man s replacement knot in place of the Sennit, the Reever or the Vice Versa !
   ( I have another problem with those three bends...They belong to a small class of bends that do not fit into a greater scheme of things I am exploring these days : To see all  bends as particulat untucked or retucked generalized  Carrick mats.) 

how does the bellringer's loop jam?!

   The same can be said for a few more very simple knots - but not many more... There are thousands of knots out there, that, on some materials, and/or with a high enough load, will jam - sooner or later, more or less. We have to measure the force that a knot requires to be untied... and that has not been done, has it ? And how exactly will we measure this force ? And which force ? The force needed to push, and then pull out, a standing end or a tail ? The force needed to "open" up the knot, by pulling two points of it towards different directions ? Jamming is something easier said than measured...and I do not believe in things that can not be measured.

[xarax]

I do not believe that surgeons actually use the "surgeon s knot"...

  Ashley reports that, during 20 years, he had questioned nearly 200 surgeons, and he had found that over 70% of them tied the [non-glorified] Granny knot, and not the "well known" Surgeon s knot....( : "surgeons do not speak of the "Surgeon s knot", any more than a sailor would speak of a "Sailor s knot " , i.e, never !  ). I do not believe that the situation has changed dramatically since Ashley s time, so I reckon that most surgeons, when they will tie a Surgeon s-like knot, they will most probably start from a Granny, and not from a Reef ( Square, Hercules) knot. I think that this is probably due to the fact that the direction of circular motion of the hands/scissors holding the working ends should be reversed during the second stage of the tying of a Reef knot - but not of a Granny knot. Perhaps the Granny knot is a more "natural" knot to tie than a Reef knot, because our hands somehow "remember", and, when they repeat a circular motion after a few moments, they have the tendency to follow the same direction with the one they had followed previously.
   A more correct name for the knot presented in this thread would probably be the somewhat heavy " Double antisymmetric Surgeon s knot ", or the more light " 2x2 Granny knot ". (?) 

...see all  bends as particular untucked or re-tucked generalized  Carrick mats. 

   I was quite impressed by the unexpected - at least for me - finding, that so many well-known bends were just simple symmetric re-tuckings of a particular Carrick mat ( Hunter s, Shakehands, Alpine Butterfly, Ashley s (ABoK1452), ABoK#1408 )(1)(2) Another family of bends, not so well-known, emerged from a re-tucking of another Carrick mat. (3). So,from there it was a small only step to ask oneself if this is also the case for other bends as well - indeed, for all the other simple, practical bends - i.e., if we can tie all - or at least the most of - the simple practical bends, starting from Carrick mats. I was not aware, at the time, that Ashley had also the same idea, although it seems that he had not applied it to some of his own bends... ( See ABoK , p. 274, #1546 - #1556 ).

1. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3251.msg19606#msg19606
2. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=2826.msg19395#msg19395
3. http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3086.msg18494#msg18494